Tips & Tactics

Nifty Field-Dressing Tips

Photo: There's no need for nasty hands. If you haven’t added disposable vinyl gloves to your gear list, you are missing out.

Here are some field-dressing tips every hunter should have on hand. Pun intended!

Like many hunters, I use disposable gloves while field-dressing my deer. Obviously, gloves minimize the amount of blood on my hands and sleeves, but here’s a trick you might not have thought about.

After I’ve finished with a field-dressing job, I hang on to the gloves for another purpose. I peel them off, leaving them inverted so the bloody exteriors are now the inside. Then I put my knife (sheathed), Butt-Out Tool, and anything else that got nasty, into the glove.

Now the inverted glove can be tied like a balloon, placed in my backpack, preventing the bloody gear from getting my pack messy. I can clean up things when I return to camp or get to fresh water.

– Editor’s Note by Tim H. Martin

As many times as I’ve used disposable gloves while field-dressing game, I’ve never thought of inverting them and putting my bloody gear in until I read Rob’s tip — pretty smart!

Several years ago, I invested roughly $14 in a 240-count supply of disposable vinyl gloves from Costco. It’s turned out to be money well spent.

I immediately divided the gloves into three Ziploc bags and stored them in three different places: my backpack, my kitchen cabinet and behind the back seat of my truck.

Field-dressing deer isn’t their only purpose. I use gloves when cleaning fish, quail, rabbits, ducks, wild hogs, doves and squirrels. They keep my hands clean if I have to check the oil, too.

Here’s another great tip: they also come in handy for keeping your hands scent-free if you have to go No. 2 in the woods.

The ones I store in my truck have come in handy countless occasions, especially the time a buddy claimed he couldn’t help clean quail because he’d left his rubber gloves at home. I simply reached in my truck and pitched him a pair!

Editor’s Note: If you have a unique or special tip you’d like to share with Buckmasters fans, please email it to huntingtips@buckmasters.com and, if chosen, we will send you a cap signed by Jackie Bushman, along with a knife!

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